


State of Matter

by BrynTWedge



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Monologue, introspective, personal piece
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-25 12:49:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16197878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrynTWedge/pseuds/BrynTWedge
Summary: Mycroft reflects on how he became the Iceman.A narrative from Mycroft's perspective, including his past, motivations, and revelations.





	State of Matter

I wasn’t always the iceman. I was, in fact, a warm hearted child in spite of my upbringing. I hear the whispers throughout the office speculating what made me the way I am… hurt from love seems to be the most common explanation. I suppose they are right in many respects. 

Getting hurt over and over, not from one person but from many… it changes people. At first I was depressed by it. I tried hard to be better than what I was. But after being told so often that I needed to be better, that I should be more than what I tried so hard to be… I got tired. 

I wasn’t ever going to be the man they wanted. Even if I fulfilled their every wish, they’d only create more demands over me. I did my duty and more as a child — I raised Sherlock instead of being a child myself. And yet, my parents still would tell me I should know better, be better. 

It is true that it was after my failed attempt at love that I finally changed. When I tried hard to be happy and a good man, and instead was used and abused. In the hurt and pain of the aftermath, I was taken advantage of again. My nature had gotten the best of me, again, and I was left hurting long after being cast aside once more. 

It was then I realised… not again. I’d spent my life trying to please others. I had no idea what I even had wanted for myself in life… the things I had pictured, I clearly wasn’t going to get — not the way I was, at least. No one wanted me as I was, I was never enough as I was… and so I decided to change my expectations. 

The most fundamental thing altered about me… I realised I wasn’t a good man that was trying hard to be better and failing. I was a bad person, with the morals of a good one. I wanted the things that I’d always told myself were reasons to hate myself further, because they were not acceptable as a good person. Money. Power. Control.

I wanted to matter my entire life, but I went about it wrong. Always trying to please people into making them think I was important. Instead, I took that part of myself and put it in a box, and buried it within. I was going to _make_ them realise I mattered. I was going to become unequivocally important. A fixed, finite fact. I was to be the authority, the leader, the one whom it was not _optional_ to consider. People were to obey me, and suffer the consequences of my order should they choose not. There was no greater means to matter. I didn’t need their acceptance, or even approval. I could be important to them, by standing over them whether they liked it or not. 

No one ever chose me in the past, so trying harder and harder for them to chose me would serve no purpose. I was cast aside, told I didn’t matter, that I was unwanted. That seemed to be consistent no matter where I ended up, be it around family, colleagues, or in education. I couldn’t change it, that was obvious. So I stood above it. 

I still am unwanted. But I embraced it. I learned not to want them either. I learned not to care about anything that did not serve my purpose, as had been done to me for so long. I only mattered to schoolmates when I was doing their homework. I only mattered to Sherlock when I was saving him. I only mattered to family when I was being whom they approved, in silence. I was only convenient to a partner so long I served their selfish purposes… I didn’t matter as a person. I’ve only ever mattered as much as what I can do. 

And so I took that and made what I can do more powerful than anything their idiotic minds could fathom. I made myself cold, unfeeling, uncaring, ruthless… but invaluable. I was water in my youth: soft, patient, life-giving. Now I am ice. The strength and power to carve mountains, to lift anything in my path and remove it. I do not give life. I stand above it and affect it all. 

I have thought about taking my position and proving something to those that had taught me to be this way in the past. But it is not worth my time anymore. Those that are aware of what I can do now seek _me_ out and beg for my help. They come to me. All of them — the entire country. I matter. 

I am not a good man. I no longer have the handicap of the virtuous morals I once had, and so I can accept this fact. Occasionally I question my fate had I continued as I was; I am alone, as I would have been otherwise, but instead of feeling forever inadequate, I am content with my position. I do not need the illusion of acceptance, or of importance in others’ lives. I have the proof of it in my hand. 

I want for nothing, as I do not allow myself to want… the sorrow creeps in seeping from the delusion of being loved. I cannot be loved. I could not back then, nor could I now… for different reasons, granted, but none the less the outcome remains the same. 

I watch from the shadows as they go about their lives. I wonder what it must be like. Even my staff, whom obey my every command without question. What would it be to be chosen to matter. I cast these thoughts away as they serve only to hurt me. I do _not_ matter by choice, nor have I ever, and therefore I must not want it. It is a state of being beyond which I am capable. I remain solitary,but unquestionably significant.


End file.
